Contact List

Names in my 12 year old son’s cell phone address book;

• Ex #1
• Ex #2
• Ex#3
• *New

Lock up your daughters, people.

Pope Descending a Staircase

Watching the news this morning, saw Pope Benedict coming off the plane. Because he was walking down the boarding stairs, his robes lifted to reveal his Pope shoes. I don’t think we often get a peep at Pope kicks, we’re usually focused on the hats, right? Well, I’m hear to tell you, the Pope was wearing hot, red, leather shoes. Think Capezios. The Vatican may be clamping down on gay men in the priesthood but someone has overlooked Father Fabulous in wardrobe.

Confession Time

Confession #1: I have short, stubby little fingers. It’s true. Think that BK commercial with the tiny-hands guy, not sexy.

Confession #2: I have an affinity for the Lili Taylor character in Say Anything. There are times when I want to be the moody troubadour in the back room of the party singing, “Joe lies, Joe lies when he cries.” Ok, maybe not that morose, but it is my life-long ambition to be able to break out the guitar jam when the spirit moves me and my stubby fingers have always foiled that plan.

Confession #3: I may have resolved conflicting confessions #1 and #2. I bought a ukulele. It is a Fluke, color “poi-ple,” and it is my constant companion. It’s small enough that I can sit it by my desk and pick it up throughout the day to practice while reading email or catching up on my RSS feeds. (Former co-workers sigh with relief that I am working from home.) And because it is a ukulele and only has four strings, my stubby little digits can form most of your basic chords. Naturally, I suck, but I suck less than I do on guitar, in fact, I’m already tackling honest-to-Don Ho songs…

Expanding my Ear Drums

I listen to many different kinds of music, but I will readily admit that I rarely challenge my auditory senses. That’s not to say my collection is the musical equivalent of buying a framed print to match the sofa. More like buying a nice painting from an independent artist to match the sofa. I stretch, but I’m still working in the basic pop vernacular.

Last week I started teaching myself Ruby on Rails. I don’t learn coding easily, my brain doesn’t like it. I feel like I’m learning French, Chinese and basic ukulele simultaneously. My head hurts. And while I can’t work in silence, learning code while listening to my tunes creates too much noise to concentrate.

So I turned to a friend of mine who writes for the music blog, Dichtome. She set me on a course of accessible ambient, Air and Boards of Canada. This may not be super challenging to you, but it’s way foreign to me—and I was born in Canada!

Turns out that this is the perfect music for learning to code, who knew? I feel like I just discovered religion, I’m hungry for more. I’ve been scanning the blogs, here, here and here. And I’ve found some stuff worth exploring, but there’s a lot of Ruby to learn and I don’t have much of a coding soundtrack, yet. So, if anyone wants to turn me on to some sweet music or remedial RoR tutorials, we take all comers here.

Whatever Happened to Curly Jefferson?

It’s important to interact with the youths, they keep you abreast of all good things on the interwebs. My friend M. shared Old Gregg (after the jump) with me last night. It is so wonderfully random. I highly recommend you stick with it to the end, I certainly didn’t see it coming. I’m off to pour myself some Baileys.